The riders of Worm
by Smaugtheterrible
Summary: Danny Hebert dies instead of Annette, who as it turns out is a might bit unstable. And now, with more biblical knowledge then she knows what to do with, Taylor will Ride.
1. Chapter 1

_Riders of Worm_

It seemed as though the entire world was staring fixedly at the 4 figures that sat stride horses suspended in midair. Everyone, and everything stared at those 4 riders, from Leviathan, its watery form fixed in a gigantic, motionless wave, poised to swamp the city of Brockton Bay, to capes, both heroes and villains who found their eyes drawn, against their will to the the riders in the sky.

The first rider clad in red mail, a black skull bandanna tied around raven hair obscuring her face, a sword with a skilled hilt clenched in one blood red gauntlet. The first riders horse was coal black, its man and hooves alight with licking flames.

The second rider was clad in full bodied white plate mail, with a white robe cinched at the neck and waist, a dingy, off white crown resting on top of the pristine, if menacing white helmet. And in the riders hand was a bow of pale yew wood, unstrung, but somehow humming with power.

The rider with the crown of diseased, corpse white metal sat astride a horse rife with disease, its skin riddled with open wounds and sores through which crawled worms and flies.

The third rider wore a simple pair of green vests and slacks, along with a white shirt that hung of her emaciated frame, almost drawing her in fabric with each bone in her body clearly defined under her taut skin. In one boney, white knuckled hand was clutched a set of obsidian scales that seemed to absorb all nearby light.

The third rider sat astride a horse that seemed to be on the edge of death, its stomach bulging, parchment thing skin stretched over bone and organ, every breath a torturous wheeze of effort that left the horse looking more emaciated and worn then before.

And then, finally, the fourth rider, a pale woman, clad in a suit pale white suit, long white hair drawn back into a long ponytail that reached down to the small of her back. Her eyes, were like to chips of obsidian that contrasted starkly with the white and grey suit the woman wore, in one gloved hand the woman held a bone white scythe that ended in a blade so thin and sharp, it seemed to disappear if you didn't see it look at it from the side.

The fourth riders horse was one of bone, and pale, corpse like skin that had large hole torn into it, exposing nothing but pale bone and infinite and withered innards.

The crimson rider held up her sword and spoke, her voice sounding across the silent battlefield like a howitzer, the whistle of falling bombs, and screams of the dying.

"Brockton Bay! I am **WAR**! And for to long this city has languished in the grip of corruption, filth, and the inhuman! Today is the day that it becomes purged in the cleansing fire!"

The second rider raised one clenched fist and spoke, its voice gurgling and thick with phlegm.

"Brockton Bay…. I am **_Plague_** , and for far too long the rich and the powerful have rotted within their golden places, for too long have the inhuman squandered their lives with indulgences and flaunted their perfection. I have come to drag down the inhuman with rot and corruption, and bring them down through force into equality."

The third rider lifted her scales so the were in front of her, her voice thin, worn, and dusty, as though she speaking hadn't been on her list of things to do for the last few hundred years.

" _Brockton Bay… I am Famine… For too long have the rich, the powerful, and the inhuman… Glutted themselves on the fat of your labors… Leaving you all defenseless, starving, and_ ** _dying_** _, I am here to turn the tables, to flip over the game board of life and give all living an equal chance. No more greater, no more lesser."_

The fourth rider merely inclined her head, and then an absolutely terrifying voice seemed to rise out over the battlefield, a voice of coffin lids slamming shut, a voice of cracking bone and dripping blood.

" **Brockton Bay. I am Death the eternal. I am here to reclaim all who have escaped my grasp and eluded their final rest. I will take every single Inhuman that has been corrupted by their unnatural power, power that will be cleansed from them in life if they surrender, or the final rest if they fight."**

And then Death raised her scythe high, so that it caught the mid-day light with a slight sparkle.

 **"** **Today Brockton Bay, the four horsemen ride, today, the world ends and is born anew from amidst the ashes, a new world will arise, a** ** _better_** **one."**

And with that, the four horsemen _rode_ , and with them, the end followed.

 _Five months ago_

Taylor screamed as the belt her mother was wielding lashed into her back yet again. She was half listening as her mother ranted of her daughters sin and weakness. How she failed her father through her weakness. But finally the stinging, burning lashes stopped, and Taylor curled in on herself as she listened to her mother slams her bedroom door shut as she left.

She listened as the usual after-beating ritual played itself out, Annette stomping down the stairs, loudly muttering about 'sins of the flesh', and 'weaknesses of the soul and the spirit'. Taylor listened with her ear to her carpeted floor as cabinets slammed, and glass clinked.

But then something happened that was not a part of the typical ritual.

There was a large thump, a tinkle of breaking glass and then silence.

Taylor waited for a few moments, listening to see if her mother would stand up. But as the silence continued, Taylor cautiously stood up and slipped her shirt over her cut, welt covered, and bleeding back.

She stood and opened her door, her bare feet treading softly down the stairs to the kitchen, ready at any time to run back to her room, but her mother, instead of drinking herself into a drooling oblivion as was the norm, was instead on the floor, moaning.

 **Destination**

In a panic, Taylor rushed to her Mother's side, just in time to hear the words that would break her mind, soul, and spirit. The words that she had been dreading ever since her father had died in a car accident while coming to pick her up from a slumber party.

 **Trajectory**

" _This… this is all your fault, your father, and now this… All your fault._

Taylor broke as her Annette Hebert, mother to Taylor Hebert, widow of Danny Hebert breathed her final, and most poisonous curse.

 **Agreement**

 **Error**

Taylor screamed, and screamed, and screamed.

She screamed until her throat bled, and her voice failed her.

She was still silently screaming as the police came.

 **Error**

 **Reset,**

 **Reset,**

 **Re-,**

 **r-, r-,**

 **Ride**

 **RIDE**

 _Scene Break_

Emily Piggot, director of the Brockton Bay PRT looked down at the incident report in front of her. A young girl had been found by her mothers corpse, the older woman dead of a sudden heat attack that apparently would have been agonizing, if relatively quick.

Looking at the reports of the scars, mutilations, and signs of… _other_ things present on the young girls body, Piggot couldn't help but think the bitch deserved far more. She had seen worse, but not much.

The girl, Taylor Hebert was her name, had her hair turn white as snow, and apparently stopped talking. The only reason the file was on her desk was because the girl had been confirmed as a parahuman by Panacea when Taylor had been brought to her for healing. Panacea hadn't been able to fix the girls voice however, the issue being both mental and physical, the healer only being a bee to deal with the latter.

But now the problem was Piggot had a 16 year old para-human with unknown powers, who had committed no crime, had a fully payed off house that had been willed to her in her mother and fathers wills, not to mention was legally emancipated, and hadn't _that_ been a surprise when it first came across her desk, apparently Taylor had tried to leave her mother before, had gotten the papers signed but had never moved out.

Piggot sighed. She felt for the teen, really she did, but the girl was unresponsive to anything outside a normal routine, outright ignored any offers that had anything to do with the PRT, the Wards, or even simple power testing.

Piggot sighed again as she wen't over the paperwork. It mentioned a desire to go to Arcadia, and the least the director could do to help someone as much as Taylor had to stay on the straight and narrow would be to get her going to a school she wanted to be at.

If it also included mandatory Psych evals, a far more welcoming environment that was less likely to send a newly triggered parahuman on a rampage, the Wards, and both Glory Girl and Panacea just in case… Well, there was a reason Emily Piggot was the director of a city with the most parahumans per capita in the country.

 _Scene Break_

Taylor looked into her cup of tea as though it contained all the mysteries of life. The annoying people in uniforms had left a few hours ago, promising to return tomorrow with further talk.

That was all they seemed to do, talk, talk, talk. Taylor idly wondered what good it did her, they were full of sorrowful words about her loss that had slowly morphed into pitying looks when they had found her marks, both old and new.

Taylor sipped her tea.

The people in uniform had tried asking where they had come from but she had just ignored them. Then two people in costume had tired asking her to join the wards. She idly wondered what their names had been.

The woman with the U.S.A. bandana mask had been nice, if annoying. All in all she had appreciated the man in the mechanical suit more, he had been direct and to the point.

Taylor sipped at her tea.

She had ignored them both, ignored them until they returned her to her house. The hospital where she had been staying earlier had been… less then pleasant. The doctors and nurses had tried to take pictures of her marks, but she had refused, pulling herself out of their hands, and a few days later they had given up, and released her.

Taylor lifted her left wrist up to her eyes. On the inside of her left forearm was a tattoo of a red sword, with a single drop of blood, just about to fall from its point. It had been there for the past few days, and she wasn't quite sure what to do with it.

Taylor knew she had never gotten a tattoo before, her mother would have never allowed it, but nevertheless it was there.

Taylor sipped her her tea.

The worst part of the tattoo was its presence in her mind. She seemed to think about the crimson sword a every minute. Sometimes if she wasn't careful she would catch her fingers, _caressing_ the sword, carefully tracing down its length till her slim fingers reached the blood drop. Other times she would catch herself scratching at her new body art so much the skin would rip, tear… **_Bleed._**

Taylor sipped her tea.


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter two_

Taylor stared at the paperwork in front of her, before wordlessly raising her head to stare at Director Emily Piggot, a rather short and squat woman with brown hair, who looked like she'd been poured into the suit the was wearing and not in a particularly good way.

The director was in the midst of trying to convince her to transfer to Arcadia, she had arrived with a squad of PRT soldiers, and both Armsmaster and Miss Militia just over an hour ago and had spent that time attempting to convince her of the wisdom of transferring to Arcadia.

To be fair she had mostly been ignoring them, but Piggot was getting annoying.

Taylor sighed and grabbed a pen and a pad of paper.

 _'_ _if I sign this, you, your goons and capes leave, and don't bother me again, especially not at home. Fair?'_

Piggot nodded before glancing at the capes to either side, who had frowns featured prominently on their faces, but who both gave their acquiesce.

Taylor nodded, inwardly relived to finally have all these annoying adults away from her home, and signee the papers that granted her a transfer from the hell-scape that was Winslow into Arcadia, home of the Wards and of the children of New Wave.

Taylor idly scratched at her tattoo as she realized that she had just committed herself to years of schooling with capes watching her every move. Shrugging mentally she figured that one way or the other it would be worth it. Now the issue was to figure out what her powers actually did, of course, she now had a house with a decent sized basement…

 _Scene Break_

Taylor stared at her tattoo as she breathed in and out. Her attempts at figuring what powers she had had so far been useless. The tips, tricks and ideas that she had picked up from the web forums had all boiled down to a few main points.

Most powers are fairly self explanatory. It shouldn't take that much effort to figure out super strength, or the fact that you can breath fire after all.

Most powers come with what is essentially a users manual, powers that fall into classifications like Tinkers and Thinkers might not always know _exactly_ what there powers do, but they have a pretty a good idea. A Tinker with no idea of the specialty might not know what there specialty, but they can still build something.

3\. More abstract powers, and a powers specialties can often be figured out through mediation or experimentation. For some reason the stranger powers can often be detrained or figured out through mediation.

The problem that Taylor was facing now, was that none of the methods she had picked up online were working! Taylor snarled as frustration mounted, her fingers scratched at her damnable tattoo, scratching, _ripping,_ ** _tearing_**.

And then, out of the broken skin, a single drop of ruby blood beaded, and wound down the sword that hd been tattooed to her flesh.

And then everything changed.

The tattoo writhed, sending inky crimson tendrils spiraling out through Taylors skin. Taylor groaned, low in her throat as her body shifted, bulked, and changed.

For a brief moment the pain stopped, and Taylor realized that along with being taller and more muscular, her hair color had changed from brown to a deep, unnatural black.

And then she screamed soundlessly as crimson armor melted out from her flesh, falling into place and forming a what seemed like a bloody knight in full armor, along with the strange laminate plate of a samurai over the crotch and on the shoulders.

Taylor straightened up with a groan, and then looked down at her new form and grinned, her teeth like rows of polished tombstones.

" _Excellent."_

Her words were a metallic hiss that coiled and slithered through the her house, her eyes glowing a lambent, stoplight red.

 _Scene Break_

The Wards who attended Arcadia all stared down at at the dossiers that had been thrown in front of them by the Director, each with the same picture clipped to the front.

An older looking female teen, although that could have just been the white hair, and the dark blue, almost ebony spheres she had for eyes that even through printed ink gazed out with an almost inhuman intensity.

Vista shivered, she could swear that out of the corner of her eye, the picture eyes seeming to shift.

The youngest, and yet most experienced Ward refocused as the director gestured towards the file.

"The file in front of you is considered absolutely top secret. The parahuman's name is Taylor Hebert, and she is 16 years old."

Aegis was already flipping through the file, his face cycling through various expressions of disgust, anger, pity, and finally nervous dismay. He finally flipped the folder closed and turned to look at the Director.

"If the file is completely correct, where is Shadowstalker, and why is the Hebert girl being transferred to Arcadia?"

Piggot sighed, she might not like Parahumans, but she disliked unknown, dangerous, murderous ones even less.

"Shadowstalker not being here has a twofold reason. The first is simple, since Taylor will now be attending Arcadia, a Ward that attends Winslow has on need for classified information about the that in our investigation of Taylor Hebert, there have been questions raised about her conduct both as a student and as a Ward."

Aegis, as the leader of the Wards looked taken aback, but nodded.

"So what do you want us to do, you said Taylor hadn't committed any crime, was able to support herself, and refused any sort of power testing. We have absolutely no hold on her, so why are you going out of your way for this?"

Vista looked at Aegis like he was an idiot.

"Really? You don't think we should try and get on good terms with an parahuman with unknown powers, and make sure that she at least doesn't become a villain?"

Aegis shrugged.

"It just seems like a lot of trouble, did you ever even ask her if she wanted to transfer, or did you force her to sign the transfer papers so you could have the Wards and a few members of New Wave to watch her. Am I wrong?"

Piggot shook her head, a little discomfited by the Ward leaders accurate assessment of her plan.

"No your not wrong. But thats the assignment I'm giving you. I wont tell you to befriend Taylor Hebert." Piggot rubbed the bridge of her nose tiredly before continuing. "Even though god knows she needs one. What I will tell you is that you need to determine her power set, once thats done, we can decide what our further methods for approach and interaction can be, wether thats Wards, Protectorate, or hands off and as far away as possible."

Aegis turned to the other Wards, Vista, who was just entering into Arcadia's middle school subdistrict, Gallant and Clockbocker who were both in the same grade as he was in Arcadia, and then finally at Miss Militia who was a teacher at Arcadia who focused on the Archery elective and club.

The Wards nodded, but Miss Militia looked doubtful for a few moments. Finally she sighed, rubbed her forehead as a headache bloomed in-between her temples, and nodded.

She might not like it, but, in the end she could see the wisdom in it.

 _Scene Break_

Taylor gazed out at the quiet streets, the empty and dilapidated warehouses, she listens to the murmurs of drug deals and sex being bought and sold. She smelled the corruption, and the fall stench of the inhuman.

And so Taylor Hebert took one step back into the shadows, and then War took one step out of them.


End file.
